


High Above and Far Away

by JessaLRynn



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Light Angst, Storms, The Oncoming Storm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 21:50:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6026481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JessaLRynn/pseuds/JessaLRynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Most of the time, she's normal, mortal and simple and blending in like everyone else.  But some times, like now, she becomes something else, something incredible and fascinating, and the Doctor can feel her more real than nearly anything else he remembers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	High Above and Far Away

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a ficathon at Then_theres_us: Challenge 60

Rose is looking out over the sea when the Doctor finally steps out of the TARDIS. She's high above him and far away, and he wouldn't even know she was there, except that he just does. He can sense her somehow, or maybe that's not it. She has a weight and a presence that's almost physical on the time around her, that's it. 

Most of the time, she's normal, mortal and simple and blending in like everyone else. But some times, like now, she becomes something else, something incredible and fascinating, and the Doctor can feel her more real than nearly anything else he remembers.

Sometimes, he really hopes he's imagining that.

All the same, he watches her, high above and far away. Her shoulders are set, sharp like the jagged mountains around them. She's got her face turned away from him, and he can't help but catch his breath. She's staring, unguarded, out over the water, and it feels like she's looking into some middle distance, some far seen eternity that isn't for mortal eyes to watch and remain sane.

She reminds him of Gallifrey in these moments. She's staring at something, staring impossibly deep, and he's reminded of the Inspired who looked into the Schism and, frozen in awe and in wonder, they watched what they saw like they were looking into glory. She makes him think about that moment, trembling with fear and even more with joy, so utterly terrified at what he was seeing, so completely ecstatic at the same time. He strangely wonders if she'll run, and decides that if she does it will be because of the inspiration, not the fear.

He steps slowly, softly, so as not to disturb her. He just wants to watch her like this, as still as a monument, as solemn as a churchyard. She's pale and light against the darkness of heavy, lowering clouds. A massive, brutal storm is building off the shore, up the coast and out to sea. Hopefully, there, it can do the least of the necessary harm it must inflict.

The moment that thought comes to him is also the moment his haunted eyes fall on Rose's solemn face. She's wearing a soft look of quiet sorrow, a shadow of sad-eyed understanding in the set of her mouth and the cant of her head. High above and far away, and he can still see grief and understanding in her strange and distant gaze.

Her eyes arrest him completely. They're bright and shining, an entranced and entrancing contrast to the sympathetic expression she wears. There's something so familiar about that dark-eyed sparkle, something he knows he can identify (but dares not) something he sees every day.

Her lips curl into the tiniest of smiles, sad but understanding, mournful but forgiving. That smile he knows well, too, has seen time and again in the warmth of her nature as they fall and tumble and venture across time and space, leaving his ever-present trail of wreckage in their wake.

He wonders what she's looking at only then, when he knows she's seeing deep into something, giving her gentle compassion to something that's probably far too undeserving to even comprehend its loss. (Yet, he's the most undeserving of all and knows exactly how much.) She's high above him and far away, and he wonders if he has even a chance to see what she sees, even as he turns to follow her line of sight out over the darkened ocean.

There's a waterspout out on the water, trundling carelessly across the horizon. The storm has already wreaked its most destructive havoc, sent down its cyclonic power to feed itself and disrupt the world. Horrified, the Doctor realizes it's coming toward them, toward the bluff on which he's parked the TARDIS, toward the cliff high above and far away where Rose stands, admiring and apologetic, in the face of the towering doom.

He shouts for her, fear and confusion filling him. If she knew the storm was there, knew it was coming, bearing down on her, how could she bear to stand there and just watch it? How could she wait for it, knowing it was going to take her with it on its terrible, chaotic path.

He'd known before that she loved thunder, that she laughed and danced in rain, that driving wind and deadly lightning did not frighten her as a force of nature should. She had told him that she understood they were deadly, but she also believed they were beautiful. She had insisted that just because they were destructive didn't mean they were wrong.

Obviously, she's stark, raving mad. He should have known. Of course, the first girl in ages to make him want to forget who he is and everything he's ever been taught would be certifiably insane.

The wind screams suddenly, and the Doctor shouts her name above it, and something seems to break her spell. High above and far away, she starts and looks down at him, at the wind whipping his leather coat, at the sky going green right behind him. A breeze lifts her golden hair, and a jagged streak of lighting strikes off in the distance behind her. 

She looks alien in the stark white light, a pale carved thing of moonlight and whispers, and her features seem sharp like a wolf's. Her eyes, so very dark a moment ago, carry the echo of the light within them. She's no mortal girl tumbling haphazardly into danger. She's a mythic creature who walks into it knowingly, because someone must.

He blinks, and she's human again, and there's another burst of lightning, and she's not. She's climbing down rough-hewn stairs in the cliff face, making her way while the wind tries to tear her off them. The storm is lonely, and it cries for her.

She reaches the bluff where the TARDIS sits, and the Doctor snatches her close. She hugs him back, trembling, nearly vibrating. He can sense fierce joy in her touch, and huge fear, and determination that makes mountains look likely to walk away at any moment. He tilts her face up to look at him, to demand she tell him what she was thinking, helpless little ape that she is, playing chicken with a tornado.

Her eyes arrest him again, make him swallow his words whole. She's looking up at him exactly like she looked at that storm, with compassionate understanding, sorrow, and joy. He knows that look, though he's never dared to give it a name. He sees it all the time, when she holds his hand as they walk away from some disaster, when she listens to him talk (what very little he can) about his people, when she learns that even he can't save everything.

Rose is looking at the Doctor and offering hope, mercy, compassion, trust. She is looking into him, past the storm and chaos that he is, beyond the fear and the lies of omission, and offering nothing less than her true, honest, abiding love.

She's standing right there in the circle of his arms, and she's still so high above him and far away that even he can scarcely contemplate the distance. He doesn't deserve her, he never will.

The storm breaks open above them, then, the rain falling down in icy, torrential rivulets, full of hail and nearly horizontal. The Doctor throws his leather jacket over both their heads as he and Rose run the last few feet back to the TARDIS. She's singing with laughter and he knows he'll never be able to give her up.

Rose Tyler loves the storm, and the Oncoming Storm loves her right back.


End file.
